Features and Articles

Shared Services Pricing

Shared Services

Shared Services and IT

Knowledge Management

Systems and Comptrollership

Reengineering

Management Consulting

Costing and Pricing of Services / Funding Models

With more common and shared services, the need to have innovative funding and pricing models is increasingly important. A fundamental challenge with costing and pricing aspects of shared services is that it involves using common infrastructure (e.g., technology, support personnel) to provide a range of services to a range of customers or service consumers. Common infrastructure usually requires larger scale, fixed cost investment, which needs to be recovered over an extended period of time.

The New Era of Shared Services

Ongoing requirements to improve service delivery, while at the same time trying to manage overall budgets that never seem to have enough money to cover all requests for government services, are forcing governments to re-examine their service delivery models. The Canadian Federal Government is no exception, and in its case, it has been putting renewed focus on shared service delivery models. These models provide opportunity and need to be carefully examined in terms of the best approach for their applicability, from both the service provider as well as the end-users’ or clients’ perspectives.

Shared Services from an IT Perspective

Shared services are being talked about a lot lately in the Canadian Federal Government, and to some extent most of the conversations revolve around Information Technology (IT). With that being said, it is sometimes difficult to clearly understand what shared services means, the ramifications of shared services initiatives, and how they might impact the consulting community.

Without the 'Top', There is No Knowledge Management...

Knowledge management (KM) is a term that is often used, and means several things to different people. In its simplest form, knowledge management is about having the capability for getting the "right" information to the "right" people on a timely basis. The trick is being able to properly define all the nouns in that statement. Asking what information, to whom, and when, is the key to unlocking KM. In real organizations, this is no simple matter. In addition, considering how to deploy this information, and why is also of importance.

The Role of Systems Integration in Modern Comptrollership

Financial management in the Government of Canada has been a busy place in the last few years. First there was the impending doom of Y2K, deftly staved off by quick systems implementations and brute force effort of both systems and finance personnel. Then came the changes brought about by the Financial Information Strategy (FIS) and the resultant systems and process changes that a successful implementation would require.

Reengineering is a 13-Letter Word, Again

Over the past five or six years, reengineering has taken a beating, especially in a public sector context. Reengineering got itself painted with the same brush as down-sizing and program review; which, is kind of like blaming the roller for the colour of your living room wall. Though well hated, and used for all the wrong reasons, reengineering is starting to make a well-deserved comeback. With the help of consultants, it has begun to call itself everything from transformation to UML, but it's process reengineering.

Our Thoughts on Management Consulting

Management consulting is about professionals providing management with analysis, expertise, and advice regarding issues that organizations face. There are several kinds of "consulting" each with its own specialty. Many consulting firms, like Confluence, offer a range of consulting services. These services can be combined and tailored to build methodologies specific to a particular client problem or situation.